§ XLI.
The Juice of the Grape or Must.
During the vintage of 1808, I took black grapes, carefully gathered from the vine; after having taken away the rotten and green grapes, and stripped the others from the stalks, I squeezed them upon a fine sieve, and afterwards put into a press the husks which remained on the sieve, in order to extract the remainder of the juice; and then put the produce both of the sieve and the press into one cask. Having let it stand in this state twenty-four hours, I put it in bottles, &c. to give it one good boiling in the water bath. When the operation was completed, I withdrew the bottles from the boiler. The action of the fire had precipitated the little colour which the grape-juice had assumed during the preparation, and it was become very white. I then placed it in my laboratory in a rack as if it had been wine.
I repeated all these experiments on the 10th of September 1809, in the presence of the special commission nominated by his Excellency the Minister of the Interior, composed of the most distinguished persons of the profession.
New experiments which I have begun, as well as others which I purpose to make on various objects, will be detailed in a memoir which I shall publish as soon as I shall be able to speak of their result.